I went to Multiverse 3 and generally had a good time. The highlights
for me were Richard Handley's talk on "The Paradoxes of Time Travel" and the
panel presented by Danny Heap and Terry Frost ("All hail the iconoclasts!")

Little of importance from Claudia Christian (I suspect celebrities tell
trivial anecdotes as a way of hiding their true selves: keeping their human
hearts away from public scrutiny: A velvet curtain, a defensive mechanism.)

I've wanted to produce a fanzine for years, but have been dissuaded from
this endeavour by my lack of convenient access to the technology I thought was
required.

(I'd dearly love a photocopier - then I could add illustrations and
photographs to my fanzine. My new Word Processor (whenever I get it) will allow
me to incorporate diagrams and pictures in my fanzine - but the printing time
(and ribbon requirements) for each issue will be considerably increased: Hence a
photocopier would be a great time saver. Fixing up the laser printer in the
closet would solve the time problem, but I'd miss the opportunity for
spontaneous creativity shown in photocopied fanzines.)

I was excited when I first thought about the possibility of producing a
fanzine in the early '90s. It was going to be called "Reality Module" - after a
machine for travelling between alternative realities in some of my stories, and
it was going to have my weird cartoons, along with essays, stories and poetry.
It would be weird, profound and poetic all in the same package. I even bought
coloured photocopy paper (which I still have) to make it look special.

In optimistic frames of mind I even imagined producing the first (to my
knowledge) full-colour fanzine with a comic strip and everything.

So this is 1998 - and the reality is a fanzine which is bland to look at, but
I am endeavouring to make it as legible and well-set out as I can with my
present technology.

In time it will end up looking nicer - and if you're still in ANZAPA you will
be able to watch the presentation improve as my access to technology
improves.

I have been revisiting the past, reading old volumes of my diary, searching
old paths - and have found much of value there.

Recordings of old days, thoughts, fragmentary essays, book and film reviews,
dreams, images, stories, inventions, exercises in active imagination, writing in
dozens of colours expressing all my moods and states of mind, shards of almost
metallic poetry, fantasy, SF, surrealism, truths and elaborate imaginative
constructs - a cornucopia of the cerebral and the creative.

I enjoyed reading your description of APA-technology-past in your comment to
Marc Ortlieb (FFH4) and your lament about how they APAs may be fated to slowly
die away in the age of the Internet.

I know Marc and Cheryl have zines on the Net (I'm not sure about other
ANZAPANs.) I'm sure they will provide insights into their zines printed and
online incarnations.

Myself - I can see a niche for printed zines in the brave new century.
(Provided postage rates don't fly through the roof.)

For the Internet and printed media are very different. The printed zine has
the
thrill of being a real object, the result of a struggle for perfection against
merciless deadlines. (And let's face it - we all enjoy getting
mail!)

The online zine hasn't got these time pressures, it hasn't got to be perfect
because even when it is published on the Web - it can still be modified and
enlarged. It only achieves it final form when the author decides to let go of
it.
(When I send this fanzine to Marc I have let go of it. I'll fix up any annoying
spelling mistakes afterwards in the file - for future reprints but that's
all.)

I cannot see myself producing an online periodical. When I contemplate a
possible personal website I imagine it as being a collection of stories and
essays -
being slowly updated and enlarged. One magnum opus growing ever larger.

*BRUCE GILLESPIE writes:"Dystopia has arrived, if for no other reason than Australian voters, who
believe they have democracy, will not consider voting for a third force that
renounces the assumptions of the other two parties."

I am tempted to ask you what you think about the Pauline Hanson phenomena.
My friend J.D. says that the best thing the "One Nation Party" has done is to
'give a kick up the backside to the two major parties and force them into
justifing
their views.'

Unfortunately Pauline is not an acceptable "third force" for me, but at least
no
one is apathetic about her and her politics. (The success of 'One Nation' also
shows the gulf that exists between the concerns of our political parties, and
our
concerns as citizens. I find the notion of "a mandate from the people" deeply
offensive.)

I agree that we only have nominal democracy. We can vote for the party we
prefer, but after that we have damn little influence over what our politicians
say
and do.

I had a 'terrestrial anniversary' on September 9th - but it's not that
important
now that I've adopted Martian citizenship(!). (It's very easy to do - I sent a
telepathic message to Mars last year telling them I was adopting Martian
citizenship and that if they had any objections they could come here and see me!
No little green men have popped in for a chat, and a nice cup of tea, so as far
as
I'm concerned it's legitimate!)

I turned 18 on July 18th last year. (Old enough to go for my probationary
'saucer license!) I'm turning 19 Martian years old on June 5th, earth-year
1999.

*JEANNE MEALY writes:"Glad you enjoyed Multiverse 3. Did Richard Handley bring up any new points
in
"The Paradoxes of Time Travel?"

He did provide me with some of the terminology used to describe "schools of
thought" in that area of philosophy - terms like "Chronoclasm" (a disastrous
change to the past), "4-dimensionalism" (the idea of past, present and future as
like unchangeable frames in a single film), a "Multiverse" (multiple, isolated
non-
interacting universes), and a "Branching universe" (multiple choices leading to
multiple universes branching off of the original(s)), "Pockets of Local
Fatalism"
(e.g. if you jump off a tall building you can't change your mind on the way
down.
Sometimes only one path is possible.), the difference between "Causal Loops" and
"Temporal Loops" (the former is like the worm Ouroboros - e.g. effects becoming
causes, like if I went back in time and became my own dad(!); the latter is when
you keep re-experiencing the same [or similar] events again and again - e.g.
"Groundhog Day.")

He also gave me some ideas to work with in clarifying my own evolving theory
of space-time quanta. (Smallest discrete units of space and time, smallest
length,
smallest duration - but I won't take it any further here until I've got a
mathematics font and the ability to paste graphs and diagrams into "Reality
Module.")

I saw a double feature of Dark City and Lost in Space at the
Astor on October 30th. Dark City was an amazing work - whose only faults,
in my opinion, were that it wasn't long enough (it's the sort of scenario I
could revel in), and that the villains and too much of the scenario were
revealed too early. Lost in Space had no scientific credibility
whatsoever, but was surprisingly entertaining. (Dysfunctional families are more
interesting than happy families. It is like how Marvel Comics superheroes
with their problems and
their crises of faith and their ambiguities, were much more interesting than the
traditional DC superheroes - who were wholesome all-American good-guys who
always knew right from wrong and could bash the bad guys with little difficulty
and no moral qualms whatsoever.)

I was cheezed off with the election campaign. It was a masterpiece of
superficiality, important issues were ignored or shoved aside, and the tired old
cliches were presented to us again and again as if we were hip-pocket obsessed
simpletons.

Our political parties seem ignorant of the societal changes cascading around
us,
and blind to their possible consequences. One major party lacks wisdom, the
other
courage.

I have decided that it is not enough to wait for some bright spark to invent
"Democratic Humanism" in 15-20 years time. The time of need is now. So starting
in 1999 I plan to start mapping out the social, political and philosophical
framework of Democratic Humanism. Because it's democratic,you
will
be able to influence the whole thing!

I don't imagine we'll have a Political Party by the next election (in fact a
traditional Party platform would be very inappropriate for Democratic Humanism -
no-one should blindly follow a "party line", individuals should be expected to
think
for themselves, reason, use their imaginations), but we should have a pretty
good
model of how a better society might work, and will be in a position to start
influencing (through the mass media, the Internet, etc.) our politicians and our
fellow citizens.

I'm reading "Islands in the Net" by Bruce Sterling at the moment. It started
off
slow but has turned into a terrific near-future cyberpunk thriller!

(It was written in 1988 and I notice certain 'retrospective anachronisms' - a
reference to the "green text" of the worldwide Net (no fancy colourful graphic
WWW here), to telexes, and I'm pretty sure to clattering printers (no
whisper-quiet
laser printers here). The pace of change is now so fast that an SF novel can
begin
to look old fashioned after only 10 years.)

I think that everybody should have a silly hobby to remind them not to take
life too seriously!

Mine is collecting elephants! I have about 20 model elephants. They
are made of wood, porcelain, plastic - and a couple are soft-toys (including
a Dumbo my sister Maureen bought for me in Disneyland earlier this year.)
Some I inherited and some people have got for me overseas (Ceylon, Thailand)
or have found in opportunity shops. Some are so old they have ivory
tusks and toe-nails.

Elephants are probably my favourite real animals - though I like cats.
I even have a framed picture of an elephant a friend of mine took at the
Melbourne Zoo many years ago and gave to me as a Christmas gift.